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Wednesday, 7 March 2018

Ah, the 360. The Xbox 360. What a machine! It laid the
blueprint for a 21st century console and presented online gaming to
the masses. However, unusually for such successful hardware, it boasted few essential
exclusives. While Nintendo rowed out into the blue ocean with the Wii, Sony’s
PlayStation 3 quickly gained a reputation for being hard to
program for. With their main competitor at the height of their hubris ("$599!"), Microsoft sunset the original
Xbox early and rushed the 360 out the door to gain a head start on the seventh
generation. And it worked. That lead time, plus its robust, hassle-free online
experience saw 360 eclipse its predecessor. Sony could bang on about the Cell
processor all day long, but it would take years for developers to figure the
damn thing out and third parties just didn’t have the time. Subsequently,
multiplatform titles routinely looked and played better on 360, with its
familiar PC-like architecture. In fact, it was so great that not even the
costliest design fault in console history could kill it. The rush to market
meant cutting QA corners which resulted in dashboard updates bricking consoles,
drives scratching game discs and the infamous Red Ring of Death. This
catastrophic own goal would have ended any other company but Microsoft had a
reputation to uphold and the billion dollars required to do so. I only went
through one console myself – many had several die on them. It’s a testament to
Microsoft’s handling of these issues and the sheer awesomeness of the games that
the 360 is still so well regarded.And what games they are! Pulling up the All-Time list on Metacritic,
you see a deluge of remarkable titles. Again, there are some big name
exclusives like Halo and Gears of War, but the majority of the roster is
third-party titles. It was the wealth and variety of third-party games that made
the 360 great, plus the birth of the quality indie scene which Xbox Live Arcade
helped usher in. With Sony disappearing up its own arse with PS3, the Xbox 360
was a simple, competent and confident console. Roles would reverse for the
following generation, but the Xbox 360 was king of the seventh gen (... okay, that's not statistically true – it was more of a hearts-and-minds thing. Nintendo actually sold over 20 million more Wiis, and the PS3 would eventually crawl up to sales parity with 360, give or take a million.)

But is the console itself worth owning today? From an
aesthetic standpoint… probably not. Even the final SKU, the smaller 360 E, was
a nondescript slab of glossy plastic, and those faceplates from the original
model couldn’t disguise its ugliness. The S variant is probably the best
looking of the bunch. However, considering the incredible software library,
surely tracking down a late production model is a no-brainer, right? Well,
actually no. Ironically, thanks to Microsoft’s new-found commitment to
backwards compatibility with the Xbox One S and X, reasons to own a 360 Core,
Pro, Elite, Arcade, S or E are fast disappearing. According to Wikipedia, at
the time of writing Xbox One boasts compatibility with 465 of the 1232 released
games. Some even play smoother and higher-res thanks to some clever
engineering. Why bother with a dodgy second-hand red ringer when you can get
those games on a nice, quiet, current gen console with all the mod-cons? Backwards
compatibility is a prime reason why I’ll be eyeing a cheap One S when I upgrade
to a 4K TV.

So then, the games! An issue arises here because many of my
favourites on the system were multiplatform titles and, of course, The Rule of
Four or Five only applies to exclusive experiences. With this in mind, I’m
going to tag on an extra special 7th Gen Multiplat' 4 or 5.

Quick note – yes, I played Halo and Gears. Yes, they were fine. Onwards.

Banjo-Kazooie Nuts & Bolts – Rare

So, it was this and Bioshock that made me buy a 360. The
core systems here were incredibly well designed, with a vehicle editor that’s
intuitive and simple but allows for some wonderfully complex creations. Indeed,
building and testing your contraptions is a joy. And it all looks and sounds
beautiful. The writing was still great, and Lego-loving, Banjo-banging
tinkerers like me were content to fiddle in the editor, build the USS
Enterprise and test it out over Nutty Acres. The problem, then, is that Rare
failed to make the ‘game’ part fun. The worlds are populated with monotonous
races and fetch quests that fail to make use of the incredible toybox. I’d have
brought in more structural puzzles that asked players to build makeshift towers
and bridges and knock them over and things, in addition to the vehicle aspect. Oh,
it had so much potential! But I forgive ‘em. Not for Trophy Thomas, mind. He
can rot.

Also available on: Xbox One (included on the Rare Replay compilation)Forza Motorsport 2 – Turn 10

For some reason, Forza struck the sweet spot for me between
dry simulation and shiny arcade racer. Early on I did something I’d never done
in a racer before – I switched from Auto to Manual, mapping the shift to the
right stick, flicking up and down to go through the gears. It transformed the
experience and it began to feel like driving for the first time ever. I started
with braking and turning assists and gradually switched them off one by one. I
even bought the excellent 360 Steering Wheel with force feedback. I wish the rewind
feature from subsequent entries had been present, but this is still the only
simulation-esque racer that I’ve ever got on with. Great soundtrack, too.

Fable II – Lionhead

I only played this once though but it was a fantastic
surprise. I remember a colourful, beautiful game, and I remember loving my dog.
I remember running around Bowerstone as a child with the soundtrack full of
picking strings. I remember the stupid haircuts and the chickens. I remember
the cliffside trails and the seasons of Oakfield and the sunsets. And I
remember the joy of resurrecting my dog in the DLC. A wonderful game.

Project Gotham Racing 4 – Bizarre Creations

What’s this? Another ‘realistic’ racing game?! This was a
slick game. I have great memories of winding around the streets of London on a Ducati
in the pissing rain with The Shins’ Australia on repeat. It looked incredible
at the time, with detailed cockpit views and weather effects. The kudos system
encouraged lairy driving, and I did. A hell of a feeling when you nailed a
perfect slide around a corner. And it also had a Geometry Wars game tucked in there!

The One(s) That Got Away:

Crackdown - It was supposed to be great. Never played it. Shoulda.

EXTRA SPECIAL BONUS SECTION KLAXON!!

While compiling this
list I kept hitting a wall with multiplatform games. As good as the above list
is, I’m not sure any of them would be on there if the following games were
platform exclusives. All of the following titles are available in loads of places - often across generations - but they all originated in this console cycle. So, as a bonus, let’s look at my seventh generation
multiplatform top 5. So much to choose from! And yes, I did play GTA and Red Dead Redemption.

Bioshock – 2K

As previously mentioned, this, along with Nuts and Bolts, made me get an Xbox. The
imagery and music of Rapture drew me in from the first trailer and it started a
new wave of narrative shooters that pilfered its storytelling tricks. Those
tricks soon palled from overuse, but those conveniently left audio diaries were
very effective the first time round.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare – Infinity Ward

Captain Price, baby! I’d jump off a building for that dude. This
game put down the blueprint for military shooter narratives and multiplayers for the next
decade. The sequels were sullied with outrageous and outlandish near-future baloney,
but Soap, Gaz, Price and Co. formed a perfect squad in this original outing and
it’s still the high watermark for any spectacle FPS.

The Orange Box - Valve

Hang on - you get Portaland the Half-Lives 2 AND Team Fortress 2?
This ain’t cheating, guv' – this is an amazing package. I barely even played TF2 and this
thing still represents the best 40 quid I ever spent. Portal alone would get this
on the list.

Left4Dead – Valve

Valve get a second entry on the list here. The AI Director
is the star of the show here, tailoring each session to ensure your nails get
ripped down to sore, bloody stubs. This represents some of the very best online
multiplayer I ever played.

Braid – Number None

Here to buck the FPS trend and represent the birth of the mainstream indie revolution, Braid tells a complex story
that’s baked into the systems of the game, one of obsession and regret, and
uses the medium and the players’ expectations to make it relatable and
affecting. The way the mechanics convey the narrative and implicate the player
is the reason it makes this list over many other candidates.

Monday, 19 February 2018

Next in my continuing no-particular-order
quest through the loft, I come across my Game Boy Advance. Released in 2001,
the follow-up to one of the best-selling consoles of all time was underwhelming
at first. It was borne of the same design goals as its predecessor – a durable,
modestly specced, non-backlit handheld with decent battery life. The horizontal
orientation was more comfortable in the hands, and the wider screen seemed like
an upgrade even without a backlight, though anything less than perfect ambient
light conditions resulted in a very squinty time. The performance was certainly
a massive upgrade from Game Boy Color, providing visuals broadly on a par with
Super Nintendo, although with caveats, primarily in audio and screen resolution.
And although it gained shoulder buttons, it lacked the SNES’ four face buttons,
which seemed a baffling omission. In 2001 – with PS2-fever gripping the world
and retro-fetishism in its infancy – more
was more. More buttons, more polys, more power! GBA was, frankly, a
disappointment. Remember, Sega’s Nomad had given us a portable Mega Drive in 1995. Yes, it was overpriced and had
terrible battery life (two factors that would consistently see Nintendo triumph
in the handheld arena), but it was 2001 and you could barely see this new Game
Boy’s screen!

However, being able to play the entire GB back catalogue was
a massive boon, and the inevitable redesign – the clamshell SP – provided a
backlight and also protected the screen in your pocket. I got an SP a couple of
years back and it’s beautiful. The second
and final revision, the Game Boy Micro, is still an object of desire today,
although by all accounts it’s simply too
small to play comfortably for any length of time. Maaan is it purdy, though.

But enough of this hardware nonsense – on to the games! Remember,
these are the titles that make the system worth owning for me. I haven’t played everything and I don’t like everything.

I played this on the 3DS after it was gifted to me in the
twenty-game Ambassador Program, Nintendo’s make-good to early adopters after a
significant price drop early in the system’s life. What is there to say other
than it’s possibly the best entry in this irreverent series. The ‘small-bursts’
microgames feel right at home on the portable.

Also available on: Wii U VC, 3DS (Ambassador Program)

Metroid: Zero Mission – Nintendo R&D1

Okay, so this is technically a remake of Metroid for NES, but one that transforms
the original from a barebones progenitor of Super
Metroid into something that applies all the lessons learned from that
offspring and also the GBA’s own Metroid
Fusion. This iteration looks, sounds and feels so much better, and it adds
new post-game levels. Remakes are tricky to pull off, and so often details
inherent to the experience are lost in translation. The original can be tough
to return to thirty years on and, of course, it’s still there for the purists.
But for everyone else, this is the
way to experience Samus’ first trip to Zebes.

Also available on: Wii U VC

Fire Emblem: The
Sacred Stones – Intelligent Systems

Another game I played on 3DS, this one got me into the Fire Emblem series. GBA had some splendid
tactics games, but this one... is the one I played. Being totally honest, the
story details escape me now. There was some conflict, some people fought, I
won. What I do remember is many hours
of strategy and satisfaction after hard-resetting my way through every mistake
until I had, as far as the game file was concerned, a perfect, unblemished
record of zero dead party members.
No-one dies on my watch. A fantastic SRPG on a system blessed with many.

Also available on: Wii U VC, 3DS (Ambassador Program)

Castlevania: Aria of
Sorrow – Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo

In an effort to plug some gaps in my knowledge, I got this
on a double cartridge with its predecessor, Harmony
of Dissonance. Never managed to go back to that one because this game
distils the best of Castlevania into
a perfect, portable whole. Music, level design, characters, weapons,
progression – they’re all up there with the series’ best, and the graphics work
incredibly well, too. Playing on a TV via Virtual Console, the GameCube’s Game
Boy Player or whatever trickery one cares to employ, the colour palette looks
completely differently and you can see where the developers turned the
saturation up to 11 in order to make the game readable on the GBA’s murky
little screen. The consideration and execution on display here makes it the best
Castlevania I’ve played. I’ll get to Symphony of the Night one of these days
(Switch port, please) but it’s got its work cut out to beat this.

Also available on: Wii U VC

The Legend of Zelda:
The Minish Cap – Capcom, Flagship

Once again, the Ambassador Program gifted me a game that I
had missed. Demonstrating that other developers were perfecting Nintendo’s
formulas, Minish Cap delivers a
beautiful, self-contained adventure that doesn’t outstay its welcome. While it
doesn’t stray far from the established template, Ezlo (the eponymous Minish cap
which allows Link to shrink) and the tiny Picori are memorable additions to Zelda’s roster of races and characters.
It was also the first game outside The
Wind Waker to use Toon Link (as he would later be christened in Smash Bros.)

Also available on: Wii U VC, 3DS (Ambassador Program)

Honourable mentions:

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater
2 – This isometric handheld interpretation of the celebrated Playstation
original defies all convention and expectation and is actually great.

Sonic Advance –
it’s a Sonic game from the 2000s that isn’t shite. It’s good! Shocker.

All the ports – The
GBA received some excellent versions of both NES and SNES games which, while somewhat
compromised by the small screen, gave many players (myself included) access to
these games for the first time (I never had a SNES). I haven’t included these
on the main list because the definitive versions exist elsewhere, but the ports
of Link to the Past (complete with
multiplayer game Four Swords) and the
confusingly labelled Super Mario series, including Super Mario Advance (actually a remake of Super Mario Bros. 2 or Super
Mario Bros. USA in Japan), Super
Mario Advance 2: Super Mario World, Yoshi’s
Island: Super Mario Advance 3 and Super
Mario Bros. 3: Super Mario Advance 4 are excellent portable renditions of
those classics.

The One(s) That Got Away:

Mother 3 – After
playing Earthbound on Wii U VC, I
immediately started searching Etsy for repro cartridges containing the English
fan-translation of this unlocalised sequel. Lucas has an amiibo
for-crying-out-loud! Rumour has it that an official localisation exists. I’m
really hoping it’ll appear on Switch at some point.

Advance Wars – I
think I played this once but I certainly didn’t get far. Everyone says it’s
tip-top and it’s made by the same team as Fire
Emblem.

Metroid Fusion –
I’ve got it on 3DS but never got round to going beyond the first 10 minutes.
It’s on the list. Said to be linear but still a strong entry.

The Pokemons – I played the original Red & Blue, and
that was it. By all accounts, the series is still pretty good but I could never summon
enthusiasm beyond the first 151. I think I’d very much enjoy FireRed and/or LeafGreen, though.

Monday, 29 January 2018

Back in the olden days choosing your video game console
meant taking sides: Nintendo vs. Sega, Sony vs. Nintendo, Microsoft vs. Sony. As
long as consoles have existed, we’ve had console wars. The reason? Shit’s
expensive for a 10-year old! The general affordability of the Wii, and Wii Sports’ appeal to many parents, made
the seventh console generation the first where ‘normal’ folks considered having
more than one current console in the house. Before that, kids usually relied on
a combination of birthday, Christmas, and odd-job money to get new hardware
under the telly, and your choice led to tribalism in the playground.

I began with a Mega Drive. Technically I inherited it from
my dad who had bought it in 1991 with Castle of
Illusion and Sword of Vermillion.
The former was a wonderful Mickey Mouse platformer with impressive animation
and sound; the latter was a stodgy RPG that boasted on-cart saves on the box
and which I always wished had been Golden
Axe instead. Soon after, Sonic arrived
and that was that - I was a Sega boy. I had a friend with a Master System which
I sampled a few games on. I specifically remember Back to the Future 2 being awful and Sonic being weird after ‘my’ version. My step-brother also had a
NES which I have fond memories of. But the Mega Drive was mine.

It wasn’t until ’97 that I moved on to an N64. My transition
to Nintendo wasn’t really a defection – Sega were killing their userbase with
expensive (and therefore, unobtainable) add-ons like the Mega CD and the 32X,
and the Saturn didn’t really figure in the equation in the UK. I recall seeing
shots of Virtua Racing and DOOM on 32X, but by the time I had
enough dollar, they were long gone. GoldenEye
had dropped. Friends had PlayStations with Die Hard Trilogy and Twisted
Metal, which were fun, but they didn’t have Facility˃Licence
to Kill˃Slappers-only!Wipeout looked slick, but it was no Mario Kart 64. I became a Nintendo kid. N64
Magazine kept me up-to-date with all the news and I felt like I was in a club.
Happy days.

GameCube came along and was a no-brainer – it had STAR WARS. I got the console, Rogue Squadron II… and no memory card.
That hurt for a good month or two. Video games fell off the radar as the
opposite sex properly registered on it, until the second year of university when Mario Kart: Double Dash became an
evening fixture in our house. I caught up with Resident Evil 4 and games returned to the fold with the DS and, of
all things, Animal Crossing: Wild World.

Christmas 2006 was all about Wii Sports. When Bioshock
released for 360 I decided to supplement the Wii with a mean Xbox 360 Elite
while waiting for the new Banjo-Kazooie
sequel. There I discovered Xbox Live, CoD4
and the wonders of online gaming. Everything looked so pretty! Nostalgia also drove
me to eBay a NES and catch up with Shenmue
on Dreamcast.

Once again games took a back seat for a while and I sold the
360, but the 3DS drew me back with the remastered Ocarina of Time. I inherited a PS3 with a busted disc drive which
allowed me to catch up with some exclusives via digital download. After eBaying
The Beatles Rock Band kit for 25
quid, I got into guitar rhythm games years after the bubble burst, and after
discovering that Steam had pretty much eliminated the headaches from PC
gaming (hey - I'm a delicate console flowerchild), I started hoarding Humble Bundles on my aging desktop. I got a Wii U a
couple of years after launch and flirted briefly with a Retron5 before selling
it off to make room for a Switch.

*****

Ah, I forgot one! I got a PS2 several years back so I could play ICO and Shadow of the Colossus, although that's all I've used it for.

Being an adult now (really), ‘console wars’ seem preposterous.
Long ago I reached the conclusion that you need only four or five great
exclusives to make hardware worth owning (and keeping.) For example, the
maligned Wii U was an easy buy for me – it offered a completely different
experience from Sony and Microsoft’s consoles and it easily hit my Rule of 4 or
5. Recently I’ve been contemplating packing the old girl up in her box and
storing her away. I’ll miss her quirks: the swooping curtains of the internet
browser; my Mii juggling or playing Rock Paper Scissors while he waits; the way
our Miis drop onto the screen at start-up. The original Wii remains lodged
snugly in my BESTÅ TV cabinet, just in case the urge takes me for a little Rock
Band (the DLC wouldn’t migrate so I never did the system transfer.) The Wii U
and accompanying GamePad, though, are more cumbersome and I could do with the
space. I considered the games I can’t play on anything else and something
occurred to me – with Switch steadily stripping its predecessor of exclusives,
is this the first Nintendo console to be truly worthless if you own the
company’s other hardware? Should I sell rather than store it? Does it still have
those meagre four or five exclusives?

I reckon there’s just enough to justify its space in the
loft, if not under the TV. With this in mind, I’m going to post my personal four
or five essentials here and, in future posts, those for every other console
I’ve got stored away. These are the (mostly) exclusive games that make the
platforms worth having. Obviously, with all the ports and remasters coming out,
many games are now available on different platforms or services. Which is great! – finally I don’t need to scour eBay or use a PC to play Earthbound. Availability on modern platforms may factor into my
choices for ‘The 4 or 5’ but you often can’t beat playing a game with the controller it was designed for, limitations and all.

Let’s start with Wii U, then – the ‘stepping-stone’ console sacrificed so Switch could prosper.

dartmonkey's Rule of 4 or 5: Wii U

Firstly, let’s eliminate titles that would have, until
recently, been on this list: Mario
Kart 8, Bayonetta 2
and Splatoon. I’m being harsh
with that last one. It’s a great but nobody’s going to be digging their
Wii U out of storage while Splatoon 2
is sitting on their Switch. Plus, once the frequent updates have stopped, the
sequel will have most of the original’s maps anyway. The excellent retro-styled
Squid Jump minigame has yet to make
the transfer though… hmm, perhaps I’m being hasty!

Super Mario 3D World
– Nintendo EAD Tokyo

With Odyssey doing
the business on Switch, it’s less likely this will make an appearance, although
the four-player antics could translate well, minus the touchscreen aides and
mic-blowing puzzle elements. It took me almost the entire playthrough to really
appreciate 3D World – the movement and level design feel built around 45° angles. This felt natural on the smaller 3DS in 3D Land, but restrictive here on the big
screen after the 360° freedom of Galaxy. However, taken in context as a stepping-stone between 2D and 3D games, it’s a jolly
experience, probably enhanced in multi-player, though I played alone :sadface:
It also has some of the happiest box art in history, the perfect antidote to
the greys and browns of EVERY OTHER PLATFORM’S GAMES of the period. And it gave
us Cat Mario.

Affordable Space
Adventures – KnapNok Games

One of the few games that relies on asymmetric gameplay to
the point where a Switch port would be practically impossible. This is the
definition of a gem. Humour punctuates the careful resource management as your spluttering
tourist craft navigates the underground chasms of a mysterious planet. Really
excellent, with a lovely Miiverse-dependent ending forever lost to the bits and
bytes of technological progress :,-(

Nintendo Land –
Nintendo EAD

It’s no Wii Sports
but it does introduce asymmetric gameplay in some interesting ways. Unfortunately,
the potential here wasn’t meaningfully explored in future games and we are left
with this charming bag of allsorts. Nods to famous franchises probably
frustrated rather than delighted fanboys, but there is plenty of multiplayer
fun to be had. And the aforementioned asymmetric gameplay means we can be sure
this won’t be coming to Switch.

The second best-selling game on the platform after Mario Kart 8. I got into this late and
it’s a cracker. The art design is a little haphazard – foreshadowing Odyssey (as discussed HERE) to a certain
extent, you can tell the designers were throwing things at the wall in an
effort to avoid the standard FIRE/WATER/ICE/SAND themes. There are some cool
one-off stages and ideas. Ultimately, it’s a really great 2D Mario and you can
only play it (for now) on Wii U. And it’s got a Super Luigi remix which is really hard so I didn’t bother.

Mario Maker –
Nintendo EAD

Okay, so there’s a borked 3DS version too, but Wii U is the
only place you can currently get the real, full-fat Mario Maker. Give it six months and a Deluxe version will make it
to Switch with slopes and a Game Boy filter. Unlike Nintendo Land, the only other game to make a genuine case for the
GamePad, this could easily make the transition – you simply create
your levels with the touchscreen in handheld mode and dock the console to share
them on the TV. Until then you must use Wii U to create and publish your own
Mario levels. I mean, of course it’s essential.

Honourable Mentions (not currently available on Switch): Pikmin 3 (though I prefer its
predecessors), the HD Zeldas, Yoshi’s Woolly World (also available on
3DS), Splatoon (see above) and Miiverse.

One thing to note is that, although the black sheep of the
family, Wii U also gives access to more first party software than any other Nintendo
console. In the hypothetical one-Nintendo-console-or-you-die! predicament, Wii U
would have a very strong case. Contained within its glossy belly you have access to
the Virtual Console libraries of NES, SNES, Game Boy Advance, N64 and DS. It also
runs the entire Wii library and you have two GameCube Zeldas in HD, and it’ll even run GameCube ISOs with a little modest
homebrew tweaking thanks to the Wii backwards compatibility – remember, it was just two GameCubes duct-taped together ;-) Then you have a plethora of Switch titles
that originated here, including Breath of
the Wild, plus the exclusives mentioned above. It also played host to a
bafflingly large number of fantastic indie titles – I guess residual nostalgic affection
for Nintendo fuelled most of these releases because sales can’t have been
stellar. It’s one hell of a catalogue.

So, a toast to you, sir! You and that imaginary person whose
only Nintendo console is the Wii U. Now get in the loft.

Wednesday, 3 January 2018

Scrambling around Hyrule in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild made me think again of vacationing
in game worlds, so I thought I’d revisit the topic...

Several years on, it’s interesting to reread my thoughts on
the direction of Zelda and the open world genre. I’ve visited some fantastic
places in the interim and Breath of the
Wild’s Hyrule is one hell of a playground. In part 3 I
speculated how incredible it would be to blow away the fog of the Ocarina overworld map and explore the
connective tissue – Breath of the Wild
does exactly that, and does so with a spectacular level of polish. The trademark jank of open worlds has been buffed out entirely. Of course, it’s a video
game and certain actions and objects are necessarily abstracted and streamlined (the rattling 1-2-3-POW! of the cooking animation, for example, is
pure cartoon, and who knows where my glider goes when I’m not airborne) but it absolutely nails that exploratory feeling you get in a real natural landscape. It’s not perfect but
every design decision forces you to interact with its incredible toybox in an
environment tailored towards fun, exploration and experimentation. There are no
corridors between civilisations – Hyrule Field is the game now and that buzz
you felt the first time you left Kokiri Forest in Ocarina of Time now lasts for a hundred hours or more. The gating
is gone, replaced by a natural geography crafted so impeccably that the design
feels invisible. But it’s there, in every hill, every nook, cave, pond, puddle,
tree, dune, bay and vista. It’s tough to find a spot that hasn’t been
meticulously positioned and aligned for maximum effect, yet each place feels
perfectly natural. Those tidy compartmentalised zones from previous iterations –
the areas that used to be locked until you retrieved the Phantom Doohickey from the
preceding area dungeon – now push into one another organically and you are
tasked with the adventure of exploring that connective tissue, much as I wished
in those old articles. One measure of the game’s success is the number of times
I’ve been outdoors in the past few months and gone to grab my scope to scout
the best jumping point or realised where I was standing would be the perfect
place to glide across the valley and sprint up to an outcrop the other side. I
spy obvious Korok hiding places in real hills. The game world seeps into real
life.

While it has refined the sandbox experience to the Nth degree, BOTW wears many influences. Beyond its
debt to Bethesda, it also draws on its own history. The original Legend of Zelda is a noted touchstone,
but the weather system from The Wind
Waker is felt here too. The elements in this world fluctuate constantly.
That feeling I mentioned in part 1 of the tempestuous seas stirring
your spirit is found here too as you gallop across windswept meadows,
escape the shadow of a cloud or scramble up a slippery rock face as raindrops
start falling. The majesty of the setting also reiterates another remark I made, this time regarding the music. Breath of the Wild
features a restrained, delicate score lacking the bombast of previous games
because, crucially, it is not needed. Indeed, a rousing overworld theme would
soon pall in a game where 95% of the (long) game is the overworld. It’s huge,
and you can see it all. There are no compartments and the epic fanfare
previously employed to augment them becomes redundant. The world speaks for
itself.

Other worlds Breath of
the Wild brings to mind include Thatgamecompany’s Flower (all that flowing grass and fauna, and now out on iOS!)
and the previously mentionedShadow
of the Colossus (another huge, contiguous world.) As well as polish, it’s
the detail in BotW that imbues
character and gives the game its unique flavour. Little things like:- the simple, stark black and white loading screen
with its Divine Beasts bomping beside the tooltip.

- the way the UI box fade-bounces onscreen.

- the way Link gorges food, one hand after another
as you pummel the A button to regain health.

- his red cheeks and visible breath in the
freezing mountains.

- the idle animations of the monster masks that
mirror their respective enemies.

- the way Link stubs his toe while opening a chest
if he’s not wearing boots.

- the death scream that accompanies those little
red Xs that appear where you died as you replay and retrace your steps in
Hero’s Path mode.

There are countless flourishes like these that work to
cohere the game into a unique whole. There’s no real defining moment here, it’s
just 100+ hours of exploration. It’s not without flaws. With all the obvious
care that has gone into fashioning this kingdom, it is disappointing
to run up against invisible barriers on some edges of the map. The text ‘You can’t go any further’ begs the
response “Er… why?” And, as always,
beating Ganon returns your save file to the point just before the battle so,
again, you are denied the pleasure of enjoying your success. A couple of years back
I finally played Earthbound on
Virtual Console and was overjoyed when I found that it DOES let you explore the
world post-victory. All the characters have different dialogue. Earthbound is well over 20 years old!!
Why is this not the norm yet?!

My holiday in Portugal, not Hyrule.

Overall, smart choices vastly outweigh the negatives. As
with previous games, the map is withheld until you’ve had the chance to explore
yourself. But even when you manage to scale the area tower, you’re not then
deluged with waypoints and objectives. You must explore to find them, and such
is the design of the terrain that you’ll find yourself waylaid en-route to your destination by an intriguing cluster of trees or enemy camp just begging
to be investigated. It has been noted how this contradicts the Ubisoft open
world approach, which opts instead for the laundry list of objective markers to
be drudgingly ticked off. I played Assassin’s
Creed 4: Black Flag to completion a couple of years ago and it gave a thrilling
rendition of Wind Waker’s sailing. Having
never played a Ubi-verse game, I was content to sail the ocean, ticking off
those treasure chests on my map while my crew sang shanties. Man, those blue
skies and sunsets! The actual assassinating got old pretty quickly, but the
world was (and still is) undeniably appealing. But will I ever go back? After Breath of the Wild, it’s hard to
imagine. What I can imagine is
hundreds of employees at Ubisoft Montreal/Singapore/Saturn sat with their
Switches, furiously updating a group Google doc, analysing every square metre
of the world. Bethesda's Skyrim also came to Switch at
the end of 2017 (I’ve played little else except Nintendo’s latest console this past
year) but, as convenient as it would be to have on-the-go, I think BotW has probably spoiled me for it.
I’ll just have to wait until the next Zelda, whatever that will be. My money’s
on open world again, but with a Dark World version to travel to. Ooooo!

Moving on from Hyrule, Yoshi’s
Woolly World had me diving again into the textile world of Epic Yarn, this time in HD. I still
prefer Kirby’s game, but Woolly World
was a thoroughly lovely, patchwork place to go. Playtonic did a great job
recapturing the spirit of Banjo-Kazooie
in Yooka-Laylee, and I’m savouring my
playthrough on Switch. The levels are beautiful, if a little overwrought and
less easily-readable when compared to Banjo.
For example, Tribalstack Tropics’ walls are constructed from stone blocks. With
care, I am able to scale many of them. They seem to lead nowhere and exist
purely to provide visual detail in an HD environment. Which is fine, but it
confuses the player as to the objectives and the possibilities in the space,
and invariably leads to disappointment. ‘Can I climb that wall? Ah, yes, if I’m careful! But am I supposed to climb it? Well, maybe, but
there’s nothing here, so I guess not?’ Questions like these create stress and
tension as opposed to, say, Breath of the
Wild where the questions regarding the environment go like this: ‘Is there
something special about that artfully positioned group of trees over there?’ Answer:
‘Yes.’ In fact, the answer to almost every question in BotW is ‘Yes.’ Can I glide
over to tha… Yes. What about using
fire arr… Yes. And if the… Yes. The
thing is, ‘No’ isn’t necessarily a bad answer, but the answer should be clear. Right
now, the answer to too many of the questions in Yooka is ‘Er, maybe? Not
sure.’ Still, Y-L has buckets of
charm and is made by a small team that I’ve got buckets of time for. And it’s
got the Grant Kirkhope tunes!

Looks nice from here. No quills to collect, though. Not sure I should be here, but I managed it so... well done me?

Last year Sonic Mania
had me revisiting various zones from the classic games, plus some great new
ones, all crisp and lovely. It was fantastic to see Sega finally give Sonic to
the right team (or teams: in this case, Christian Whitehead, PagodaWest Games
and Headcannon.) Lizardcube’s remake/remaster of Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap on Master System also showcased
the possibilities when ports/updates are handled by people who not only give a
shit, but also know their shit. At the touch of a button you are able to paint
over the original visuals (presented authentically with various optional
filters, though in 16:9) with some truly beautiful hand-drawn animation.
Another button toggles between the original soundtrack and a new orchestral arrangement. I spent so much time swiping between the
old and new, examining the various choices and admiring the art, and I was very glad to have the opportunity to explore a world I would almost certainly never
have gotten to otherwise.

Multiple amazing-looking games have passed me by over the
past few years, many of which are now getting ports to Switch (though I’m still
hoping forFirewatch and The Witness.) I managed to catch PS3 swansongThe Last of Uswhich presented some
stunningly detailed post-apocalyptic locales from Boston to Salt Lake City. The sheer amount ofstuffin that
game is incredible. The number of unique assets in those buildings (and Naughty Dog’s other
games, so I hear) is huge… though it’s all a bit dull. I know, I know
– I shouldn’t discriminate against games that don’t have blue skies – but
I’m left marvelling at the technical spectacle and scope without any desire
whatsoever to return. I may give the sequel a whirl – it’ll come
to Switch, right? 😉 I also tried Red Dead Redemption but couldn't get past the clumsy GTA IV controls. Looked nice, though. Maybe this year's sequel will convert me. Another sure-thing for Switch (Hey, if DOOM and Wolfenstein 2 can make it, anything can!)

The absolute antidote to all that brown-and-greyness is Super Mario Odyssey, a game which throws
the kitchen sink at the paintbox and produces a crazy, crazy video game. It
goes like this: Mario goes on holiday (well, a working holiday.) Bowser’s plot
to kidnap and marry Peach provides the loosest of motivations for Mario to
journey across an Earth-like planet chasing maniacal wedding planners as they steal
the nuptial essentials (flowers from the greenhouse level, dinner from the food
kingdom, bridal dress from the… erm, water world?) Each separate environment is
presented in a travel brochure style on the pause screen, with Mario cast as
the tourist studying the map and ticking off the local highlights before he departs
on the giant hat ship belonging to his new mate, Cappy. Who’s a hat.

I mean, yes. Fine. As previously noted, we don’t play Mario
for the narrative, but rather where it takes us, and this narrative takes us to
places both wonderful and strange. Of course, Mario has gone travelling before.
Super Mario Sunshine saw him visit
the beautiful Isle Delfino and a seaside aesthetic permeated that bright,
colourful game. Odyssey is certainly
colourful, too. And monochrome. And bright. And dark. In fact, it’s everything,
often at the same time. Odyssey
mashes cultures, styles and environments on a whim. The art design is all over the place. Tin-can comedy cog-robots? Check. Vaguely PS3-level
realistic humans from a swinging NY-esque city governed by Pauline, Mario’s
original damsel-in-distress from Donkey
Kong? Check. Roly-poly snow bears? Sure. Anthropomorphic talking cutlery?
Obviously. Realistic T-Rex with a moustache? Done. Yoshi? Natch.

It goes on. And upon completion, all these haphazard characters
meet-up in each other’s kingdoms and just party and hang out. There is
something glorious about the abandon of it; the anything-goes variety; the
inclusion of any good idea. But read that carefully – any good idea. The only way this works is by the mechanical mastery on
show – quality makes it coherent. The ability to capture any character (and the
occasional object) that isn’t wearing a hat – and the watertight application of that mechanic – makes the crazy world a joy to leap
around in. And that’s on top of the
trusty Mario moveset we’ve been using since 1995. People gave Rare a hard time when
they threw googley eyes on any old thing and called it character design, but
damnit, at least those eyes were consistent! The only consistency here is quality. And it’s enough. Whether
clambering up a volcano to cook a stew, or facing off against a Dark Souls-worthy dragon while dressed
in a clown suit, or… well, you get the idea. I cannot think of another developer
with the audacity and the chops to
throw all these mismatching elements at the wall, showcase every disparate feature with a mock travelogue
presentation… and make it all gel seamlessly. 97 on Metacritic. I haven’t even
mentioned the showtune homage to Mario’s very beginnings in New Donk City.
You’ve heard the song already, but the moment itself brings a tear to the eye. I’d
recommend making the trip. And dat Steam Gardens music!

God knows where Mario goes next. I wrote before that the
‘final frontier’ was his last refuge in the Galaxy games – he had no more
worlds left to conquer. But that was when he was resident of the Mushroom
Kingdom and its adjoining territories. I underestimated him; it now seems he
can skip through the multiverse at will – anything, anybody, anywhere is fair
game. Variety is the spice of life, they say. It’s certainly a hell of a
journey. One might even say an ‘odyss-’…